The present invention relates to a door latch device and more particularly to an improvement of a door latch device including a keyless locking mechanism and a self-cancelling mechanism.
In a conventional vehicle door latch device of this kind, the keyless locking mechanism is provided to facilitate locking of a vehicle door particularly in the rain or when the operator can not use both of his hands to close and lock the door, and the self-cancelling mechanism is provided to cancel the operative condition of the keyless locking mechanism so as to prevent any inadvertent locking of the door while the ignition key remains in the vehicle. However, in order to ensure the function of the keyless locking mechanism when the door is closed, an outside door handle has to be forcibly held after the keyless locking mechanism is set in its operative condition for automatic locking. This is inconvenient when the operator is unable to use either of his hands, for example, when it rains.